Trouble at Dow Jones

March 8, 2004

At the parent company of the Wall Street Journal and Barron’s, "grumbling about salary and benefits has increased to a dull roar over the last five years," according to the New York Observer. The Observer reports that "for the first time in the company’s history, there is frank talk of the possibility of a newsroom strike."

The contentious issues include Dow Jones’ effort to have employees pay more of the cost of health insurance.

Dow Jones’s labor-management issues could create retention problems before they create a strike. One reporter was asked by the Observer if a strike would ever happen at Dow Jones. "I don’t know if people here would go on strike," the reporter said. "I think they’d go work for The (New York) Times before they did that. They already are."